NATIONAL ROSE CONFERENCE. 



209 



wild Roses, canina, tomcntosa, smdmollis are examples of the three 

 types. 



Styles. — Finally, there are two plans of style-structures. 

 In most of the species there is no cohesion in the styles, and 

 they only reach to the throat of the calyx-tuhe ; but in the 

 Systylce they protrude beyond the disk and are loosely glued 

 together in a column. 



The characters in which groups are founded have been mainly 

 taken from styles, stipules, and prickles. 



MODERN ROSES AND HYBRIDISATION. 

 By the Rt. Hon. Lokd Penzance. 



It is about seventy or eighty years since the Dutch began that 

 system of Rose-culture which has yielded us by far the greater 

 number of the beautiful varieties which decorate our gardens at 

 the present day, the propagation of the Rose from seed. In their 

 steps quickly followed the French. Monsieur Descemets and 

 Monsieur Vibert in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris pur- 

 sued the new culture with ardour, and their labours received a 

 fresh impulse from the extended operations of Monsieur Dupont 

 under the immediate patronage and the active sympathy of the 

 Empress Josephine at Malmaison. Since that time this inte- 

 resting culture has never flagged ; and we have arrived at a 

 state of things in which every succeeding year produces, at the 

 hands of those who sow Rose seed, some fifty or sixty new Roses 

 from France, as well as a smaller contingent from the labours of 

 our own countrymen. If the mere acquisition of new r varieties were 

 the sole thing to be desired, we might rest and be thankful, well 

 content with a supply which gives us novelties as fast, or faster 

 than we can make up our minds to cast away old favourites to 

 make room for them. 



But to my mind this is by no means the only thing to be 

 desired. Out of these yearly little strangers, how many are there 

 which present any new and distinctive features distinguishing 

 them from those that preceded them? Here and there, no doubt, 

 an individual plant falls from the full lap of Nature, which delights 

 the lover of the Rose, such as " La France " or "Marechal Niel," 



